


Voice of Freedom

by jacquelee



Category: Orange is the New Black
Genre: Community: gameofcards, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-15
Updated: 2015-01-15
Packaged: 2018-03-07 18:07:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3178101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jacquelee/pseuds/jacquelee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Norma's backstory as I imagine it.</p><p>Warnings for death, violence and child abuse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Voice of Freedom

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the backstory challenge at [Game of Cards](http://gameofcards.livejournal.com).

She didn’t look back. Standing up and moving towards the door was easy, murmuring an excuse about having to go to the toilet was too. She didn’t look at them but she knew that they didn’t care, they never cared. Her voice was the most important thing to them when they could make it a commodity, something to be exploited, something that brought them money, but they never actually listened to it. They never did and she knew that they never would. 

They didn’t care about what she wanted, about who she was. She was not a human being to them, not a person, just a voice. Just a thing to be controlled and ordered around to do the things they wanted done. She had never been free and she had long since realized that she never would be free as long as they were alive. As long as they were in her life. And escape was impossible. 

It had started with a stray thought, a throwaway sentence her father said to her mother about her manager’s office, about how the candles he always kept on near the door would one day set the alcoholic beverages and after that the whole room, which was full of wooden panels and decorations, on fire. Her mother and later her manager had laughed it off, saying that they would make sure this wouldn’t happen. 

But she had been listening. In her head, a picture began to form. A way out. An escape she never had even dared to think about. It would be so easy. Just a little nudge. A little nudge, a little turn of the key that always was in the keyhole outside of the door. A few little steps. And then freedom. 

She stopped at the door, opening it, but not stepping outside. She still didn’t look back, she never wanted to look back. She knew she couldn’t wait too long, even when they didn’t care about her, her standing by the door being useless would attract attention and her mother would welcome the opportunity to yell at her. So she just nudged the candle over like she had planned. The coaster immediately caught fire and she already was one step out of the door when adrenaline and a weird sense of exhilaration kicked in. 

Maybe the part of her that refused to be quiet, to be nothing, to be a mindless automaton that just did everything her parents wanted from her, nothing more, woke up again, maybe she just couldn’t accept doing this completely unnoticed, maybe she just got a rush of excitement from the fact that she was actually, actively resisting, doing the absolutely unthinkable, but whatever it was, she couldn’t just go out of the door quickly as planned. 

Instead, she grabbed one of the bottles and hit it on the drawer. The flames immediately went to the ceiling, she could feel the heat on her hands, stinging, hurting, proving that she was alive, that this was really happening. She ignored it and threw down all the other bottles in one fluid motion, reveling in the sound of them shattering, exploding. The room quickly turned into an inferno. 

She didn’t look back, even when now it was evident that they had noticed, their voices loud, piercing. She stepped out of the door quickly, closed it decidedly and turned the key a second before they arrived at the door, trying to open it, yelling, hitting at the door. She knew they would not succeed in getting out, they would not succeed in putting out the fire. 

She had to force herself to take a step back. Every fiber of her being yelled at her to obey, to listen, to do what the yelling told her to do, to free them, to return to being a slave. She stood rooted on the spot, the part of herself that was still hers fighting with the part that was theirs. She did not plan on it, she did not do it consciously, but her voice found a way out of the fight. The first few notes were hesitant, quiet, but then she took a step from the door, from the yelling and it got easier. 

Every step felt like she had to fight against a massive sandstorm, like she was walking in mud, walking against something that tried to hold her back with an incredible force. But she kept walking and she kept singing. Every step, every note was a reassurance that she was free. That her voice was now her own. That her song was her own. For the first time in her life, she sang for herself. For the first time in her life, she was free. For the first time in her life, her voice was hers, only hers. They could not take it from her ever again. 

That was the last time she sang. The last time she talked. The last time she ever shared her voice with anybody. Her voice was hers and nobody had the right to take it ever again. 

She did not talk when they put her in handcuffs. She did not talk when they pleaded with her to tell them what happened. She did not talk when they painted her as a cruel, greedy bitch who had killed her loving family for money. She did not talk when they sentenced her to life in prison. She did not talk when they shoved her around, treated her like a child, like someone to be pitied. 

Her voice was her own. Her life was her own. She was free. Nobody could ever take this away from her ever again.


End file.
